In all lands the home of the dead was, as I have shown elsewhere,[1] beyond the waters: and just as we have seen in Ovid that Phaëton's conflagration burst open the earth
[1. "Atlantis," 359, 421, etc.]
{p. 301}
and disturbed the inhabitants of Tartarus; and in Hesiod's narrative that the ghosts trembled around Pluto in his dread dominion; so here hell is laid bare by the great catastrophe, and the souls of the dead in the drowned Flood-land, beneath the waters, tremble.
Surely, all these legends are fragments of one and the same great story.
"7. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
"8. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them."
The clouds do not break with this unparalleled load of moisture.
"9. He holdeth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it.
"10. He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end.